http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.13655

This paper presents a spectral and photometric study of the poorly studied polar BM CrB. Three states of the polar brightness and signs of transition from one-pole to two-pole accretion mode were found by an analysis of ZTF data. It is shown that the transition from the low state to the high state changes the longitude of the main accretion spot (by $\approx 17^{\circ}$) and increases its elongation (by $\approx 10^{\circ}$). The spectra contain Zeeman absorptions of the H$\alpha$ line which are formed at a magnetic field strength of $15.5\pm1$ MG. These absorptions are likely produced by a cold halo extending from the accretion spot at $\approx {^1/_4}$ of the white dwarf radius. Modeling of the behavior of the H$\alpha$ emission line shows that the main source of emission is the part of the accretion stream near the Lagrangian point L$_1$, which is periodically eclipsed by the donor star. The spectra exhibit a cyclotron component formed in the accretion spot. Its modeling by a simple accretion spot model gives constraints on the magnetic field strength $B=15-40$ MG and the temperature $T_e\gtrsim15$ keV.

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A. Kolbin, N. Borisov, A. Burenkov, et. al.
Thu, 27 Apr 23
59/78

Comments: N/A

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.13382

A striking feature of the Vela pulsar (PSR J0835$-$4510) is that it undergoes sudden increases in its spin frequency, known as glitches, with a fractional amplitude on the order of $10^{-6}$ approximately every 900 days. Glitches of smaller magnitudes are also known to occur in Vela. Their distribution in both time and amplitude is less well constrained but equally important for understanding the physical process underpinning these events. In order to better understand these small glitches in Vela, an analysis of high-cadence observations from the Mount Pleasant Observatory is presented. A hidden Markov model (HMM) is used to search for small, previously undetected glitches across 24 years of observations covering MJD 44929 to MJD 53647. One previously unknown glitch is detected around MJD 48636 (Jan 15 1992), with fractional frequency jump $\Delta f/f = (8.19 \pm 0.04) \times 10^{-10}$ and frequency derivative jump $\Delta\dot{f}/\dot{f} = (2.98 \pm 0.01) \times 10^{-4}$. Two previously reported small glitches are also confidently re-detected, and independent estimates of their parameters are reported. Excluding these events, 90% confidence frequentist upper limits on the sizes of missed glitches are also set, with a median upper limit of $\Delta f^{90\%}/f = 1.35 \times 10^{-9}$. Upper limits of this kind are enabled by the semi-automated and computationally efficient nature of the HMM, and are crucial to informing studies which are sensitive to the lower end of the glitch size distribution.

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L. Dunn, A. Melatos, C. Espinoza, et. al.
Thu, 27 Apr 23
70/78

Comments: 10 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.13313

Swift J1357.2$-$0933 is a black-hole candidate X-ray transient, which underwent its third outburst in 2019, during which several multi-wavelength observations were carried out.~Here, we report results from the \emph{Neil Gehrels Swift} and \emph{NICER} observatories and radio data from \emph{AMI}.~For the first time,~millihertz quasi-periodic X-ray oscillations with frequencies varying between ${\sim}$~1–5~$\rm{mHz}$ were found in \emph{NICER} observations and a similar feature was also detected in one \emph{Swift}–\textsc{XRT} dataset.~Our spectral analysis indicate that the maximum value of the measured X-ray flux is much lower compared to the peak values observed during the 2011 and 2017 outbursts.~This value is ${\sim}$~100 times lower than found with \emph{MAXI} on MJD~58558 much ($\sim$~68 days) earlier in the outburst, suggesting that the \emph{Swift} and \emph{NICER} fluxes belong to the declining phase of the 2019 outburst.~An additional soft component was detected in the \textsc{XRT} observation with the highest flux level, but at a relatively low $L_{\rm X}$~$\sim$~$3{\times}10^{34}~(d/{\rm 6~kpc)}^2\rm{erg}~\rm{s}^{-1}$, and which we fitted with a disc component at a temperature of $\sim 0.17$~keV.~The optical/UV magnitudes obtained from \emph{Swift}–\textsc{UVOT} showed a correlation with X-ray observations, indicating X-ray reprocessing to be the plausible origin of the optical and UV emission.~However, the source was not significantly detected in the radio band.~There are currently a number of models that could explain this millihertz-frequency X-ray variability; not least of which involves an X-ray component to the curious dips that, so far, have only been observed in the optical.

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A. Beri, V. Gaur, P. Charles, et. al.
Thu, 27 Apr 23
77/78

Comments: 14 pages, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12797

We present a comprehensive timing and spectral analysis of the HMXB 4U 1538-522 by using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) observatory data. Using three archived observations made between 2019 and 2021, we have detected $\sim $ 526 s coherent pulsations up to 60 keV. We have found an instantaneous spin-down rate of $\dot{P} = 6.6_{-6.0}^{+2.4} \times 10^{-6}$ s s$^{-1}$ during the first observation. The pulse profiles had a double peaked structure consisting of a broad primary peak and an energy dependent, weak secondary peak. We have also analysed the long-term spin-period evolution of 4U 1538-522 from data spanning more than four decades, including the data from Fermi/GBM. Based on the recent spin trends, we have found that the third torque reversal in 4U 1538-522 happened around MJD 58800. The source is currently spinning up with $\dot{P} = -1.9(1) \times 10^{-9}$ s s$^{-1}$. We also report a periodic fluctuation in the spin-period of 4U 1538-522. The broad-band persistent spectra can be described with a blackbody component and either powerlaw or Comptonization component along with a Fe K${\alpha}$ line at 6.4 keV and a cyclotron absorption feature around 22 keV. We have also found a relatively weak absorption feature around 27 keV in the persistent spectra of 4U 1538-522 in all three observations. We have estimated a magnetic field strength of $1.84{-0.06}^{+0.04} (1+z) \times 10^{12}$ and $2.33_{-0.24}^{+0.15} (1+z) \times 10^{12}$ G for the two features, respectively.

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P. Sharma, C. Jain and A. Dutta
Wed, 26 Apr 23
7/62

Comments: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12752

Large, energy-dependent X-ray polarisation is observed in 4U 1630-47, a black hole in an X-ray binary, in the high-soft emission state. In this state, X-ray emission is believed to be dominated by a thermal, geometrically thin, optically thick accretion disc. However, the observations with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) reveal an unexpectedly high polarisation degree, rising from 6% at 2 keV to 10% at 8 keV, which cannot be reconciled with standard models of thin accretion discs. We argue that an accretion disc with an only partially ionised atmosphere flowing away from the disc at mildly relativistic velocities can explain the observations.

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A. Ratheesh, M. Dovčiak, H. Krawczynski, et. al.
Wed, 26 Apr 23
11/62

Comments: Submitted to Nature Astronomy

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12675

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory sends realtime neutrino alerts with high probability of being astrophysical in origin. We present a new method to correlate these events and possible candidate sources using $2,089$ blazars from the Fermi-LAT 4LAC-DR2 catalog and with $3,413$ AGNs from the Radio Fundamental Catalog. No statistically significant neutrino emission was found in any of the catalog searches. The result is compatible with a small fraction, $<1$%, of AGNs being neutrino emitters and prior evidence for neutrino emission presented by IceCube and other authors from sources such as TXS 0506+056 and PKS 1502+06. We also present cross-checks to other analyses that claim a significant correlation using similar data samples, and we find that adding more information on the neutrino events and more data overall makes the result compatible with background.

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R. Abbasi, M. Ackermann, J. Adams, et. al.
Wed, 26 Apr 23
16/62

Comments: N/A

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12661

A tidal disruption event (TDE) occurs when a star is destroyed by a supermassive black hole. Broadband radio spectral observations of TDEs trace the emission from any outflows or jets that are ejected from the vicinity of the supermassive black hole. However, radio detections of TDEs are rare, with less than 20 published to date, and only 11 with multi-epoch broadband coverage. Here we present the radio detection of the TDE AT2020vwl and our subsequent radio monitoring campaign of the outflow that was produced, spanning 1.5 years post-optical flare. We tracked the outflow evolution as it expanded between $10^{16}$ cm to $10^{17}$ cm from the supermassive black hole, deducing it was non-relativistic and launched quasi-simultaneously with the initial optical detection through modelling the evolving synchrotron spectra of the event. We deduce that the outflow is likely to have been launched by material ejected from stream-stream collisions (more likely), the unbound debris stream, or an accretion-induced wind or jet from the supermassive black hole (less likely). AT2020vwl joins a growing number of TDEs with well-characterised prompt radio emission, with future timely radio observations of TDEs required to fully understand the mechanism that produces this type of radio emission in TDEs.

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A. Goodwin, K. Alexander, J. Miller-Jones, et. al.
Wed, 26 Apr 23
37/62

Comments: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12731

NGC 1313\,X-1 is a mysterious Ultra-luminous X-ray (ULX) source whose X-ray powering mechanism and a bubble-like structure surrounding the source are topics of intense study. Here, we perform the X-ray spectroscopic study of the source using a joint {\it XMM-Newton} and {\it NuSTAR} observations taken during 2012 $-$ 2017. The combined spectra cover the energy band 0.3 $-$ 20 keV. We use the accretion-ejection-based JeTCAF model for spectral analysis. The model fitted disc mass accretion rate varies from 4.6 to 9.6 $\dot M_{\rm Edd}$ and the halo mass accretion rate varies from 4.0 to 6.1 $\dot M_{\rm Edd}$ with a dynamic Comptonizing corona of average size of $\sim 15$ $r_g$. The data fitting is carried out for different black hole (BH) mass values. The goodness of the fit and uncertainties in model parameters improve while using higher BH mass with most probable mass of the compact object to be $133\pm33$ M$_\odot$. We have estimated the mass outflow rate, its velocity and power, and the age of the inflated bubble surrounding the source. Our estimated bubble morphology is in accord with the observed optical bubble and winds found through high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy, suggesting that the bubble expanded by the outflows originating from the central source. Finally, we conclude that the super-Eddington accretion onto a nearly intermediate mass BH may power a ULX when the accretion efficiency is low, though their efficiency increases when jet/outflow is taken into account, in agreement with numerical simulations in the literature.

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B. Palit and S. Mondal
Wed, 26 Apr 23
41/62

Comments: 10 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, accepted (12/04/2023) for publication in PASP

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12358

Identification of Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) progenitors based on the duration of their prompt emission ($T_{90}$) has faced several roadblocks recently. Long-duration GRBs (with $T_{90} > 2s$) have traditionally been thought to be originating from the collapse of massive stars, and the short-duration ones (with $T_{90} < 2s$) from compact binary mergers. However, recent observations of a long GRB associated with a kilonova (KN) and a short GRB with supernova (SN) association demand a more detailed classification of the GRB population. In this {\it Letter}, we focus on GRBs associated with KNe, believed to be originating from mergers of binaries involving neutron stars (NS). We make use of the GRB prompt emission light curves of {\it Swift}-BAT 2022 GRB catalog and employ machine learning algorithms to study the classification of GRB progenitors. Our analysis reveals that there are five distinct clusters of GRBs, of which the KN-associated GRBs are located in two separate clusters indicating they may have been produced by different progenitors. We argue that these clusters may be due to subclasses of binary neutron star (BNS) and/or neutron star–black hole (NS-BH) mergers. We also discuss the implications of these findings for future gravitational-wave (GW) observations and how those observations may help in understanding these clusters better.

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D. Dimple, K. Misra and K. Arun
Wed, 26 Apr 23
51/62

Comments: Submitted to ApjL after addressing reviewer’s comments

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12574

Diffuse gamma-ray emission (DGE) has been discovered over the Galactic disk in the energy range from sub-GeV to sub-PeV. While it is believed to be dominated by the pionic emission of cosmic ray (CR) hadrons via interactions with interstellar medium, unresolved gamma-ray sources may also be potential contributors. TeV gamma-ray halos around middle-aged pulsars have been proposed as such sources. Their contribution to DGE, however, highly depends on the injection rate of electrons and the injection spectral shape, which are not well determined based on current observations. The measured fluxes of DGE can thus provide constraints on the $e^\pm$ injection of the pulsar halo population in turn. In this paper, we estimate the contribution of pulsar halos to DGE based on the ATNF pulsar samples with taking into account the off-beamed pulsars. The recent measurement on DGE by Tibet AS$\gamma$ and an early measurement by MILAGRO are used to constrain the pair injection parameters of the pulsar halo population. Our result may be used to distinguish different models for pulsar halos.

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K. Yan and R. Liu
Wed, 26 Apr 23
53/62

Comments: 18 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.11819

Stellar winds blown out from massive stars ($\gtrsim 10M_{\odot}$) contain precious information on the progenitor itself, and in this context, the most important elements are carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and oxygen (O), which are produced by the CNO cycle in the H-burning layer. Although their X-ray fluorescence lines are expected to be detected in swept-up shock-heated circumstellar materials (CSMs) in supernova remnants (SNRs), particularly those of C and N have been difficult to detect so far. Here, we present a high-resolution spectroscopy of a young magnetar-hosting SNR RCW~103 with the Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS) onboard XMM-Newton and report on the detection of \ion{N}{7} Ly$\alpha$ (0.50~keV) line for the first time. By comparing the obtained abundance ratio of N to O (N/O$=3.8 \pm{0.1}$) with various stellar evolution models, we show that the progenitor of RCW~103 is likely to have a low-mass (10–12~$M_{\odot}$) and medium-rotation velocities ($\lesssim 100~\rm{km~s^{-1}}$). The results also rule out the possibility of dynamo effects in massive ($\geq35~M_{\odot}$) stars as a formation mechanism of the associated magnetar 1E~161348$-$5055. Our method is useful for estimating various progenitor parameters for future missions with microcalorimeters such as XRISM and Athena.

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T. Narita, H. Uchida, T. Yoshida, et. al.
Tue, 25 Apr 23
4/72

Comments: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 11 pages, 8 figures

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.11216

Ultra-/hyperluminous X-ray sources (ULX/HLX) could be interesting laboratories to further improve our understanding of the supermassive black hole growth through super-Eddington accretion episodes and successive mergers of lighter holes. ULXs are thought to be powered by super-Eddington accretion onto stellar-mass compact objects, while HLXs may be accreting intermediate mass black holes (IMBH). However, a significant portion of the sample of ULX/HLX candidates derived from catalogue searches are background AGN. Here we build ULX and HLX samples from recent XMM-Newton, Swift-XRT and Chandra catalogues and the GLADE catalogue of galaxies. We aim to characterise the frequency, environment, hardness and variability of ULXs and HLXs to better assess their differences and understand their populations. After a thorough classification of these X-ray sources, we remove 42% of $S/N>3$ sources shown to be contaminants, to obtain the cleanest sample of ULX/HLX to date. From a sample of 1342 ULXs and 191 HLXs, we study the occupation fraction, hardness, variability, radial distribution and preferred environment of the sources. We build their Malmquist-corrected X-ray luminosity functions (XLF) and compare them with previous studies. We statistically compare ULXs and HLXs and assess the differences in their nature. The interpretation of HLXs as IMBHs is investigated. A significant break is seen in the XLF at $\sim 10^{40}$ erg/s. Our ULX sample, having $\leq 2$% of contaminants, confirms that ULXs are located preferentially in spiral galaxies and galaxies with higher star-formation rates. Unlike ULXs, HLXs seem to reside equally in spiral and lenticular/elliptical galaxies. 35% of the HLX candidates have an optical counterpart, and we estimate the mass of 120 of them in the range of $2000-10^5 M_\odot$. Most HLXs are consistent with an accreting massive black hole in a dwarf galaxy satellite.

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H. Tranin, N. Webb and O. Godet
Tue, 25 Apr 23
33/72

Comments: 27 pages, 24 figures, accepted in A&A

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12003

Fast variability of the X-ray corona in black hole binaries can produce a soft lag by reverberation, where the reprocessed thermalized disc photons lag behind the illuminating hard X-rays. This lag is small, and systematically decreases with increasing mass accretion rate towards the hard-soft transition, consistent with a decreasing truncation radius between the thin disc and X-ray hot inner flow. However, the soft lag suddenly increases dramatically just before the spectrum becomes disc-dominated (hard-intermediate state). Interpreting this as reverberation requires that the X-ray source distance from the disc increases dramatically, potentially consistent with switching to X-rays produced in the radio jet. However, this change in lag behaviour occurs without any clear change in hard X-ray spectrum, and before the plasmoid ejection event which might produce such a source (soft-intermediate state). Instead, we show how the soft lag can be interpreted in the context of propagation lags from mass accretion rate fluctuations. These normally produce hard lags, as the model has radial stratification, with fluctuations from larger radii modulating the harder spectra produced at smaller radii. However, all that is required to switch the sign is that the hottest Comptonized emission has seed photons which allow it to extend down in energy below the softer emission from the slower variable turbulent region from the inner edge of the disc. Our model connects the timing change to the spectral change, and gives a smooth transition of the X-ray source properties from the bright hard state to the disc-dominated states.

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T. Kawamura, C. Done and T. Takahashi
Tue, 25 Apr 23
34/72

Comments: 7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.11197

We show that the maximum shower depth ($X_{\rm max}$) distributions of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs), as measured by fluorescence telescopes, can be augmented by building a mapping to observables collected by surface detectors. Using the publicly available data on “golden hybrid” events from the Pierre Auger Observatory we demonstrate significant correlations between $X_{\rm max}$ and timing information from ground Cherenkov detectors. Using such a mapping we show how to incorporate a subset of ground data into the inference of the $X_{\rm max}$ distribution, where the size of this subset depends on the strength of the correlation found. With a simple linear fit model, we are able to effectively incorporate $\sim13\%$ of all ground data statistics. Finally, we use this augmented dataset to infer the composition of UHECRs and discriminate between hadronic models used in air shower development simulations, and show the results improve significantly due to the effectively larger statistics available.

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B. Bortolato, J. Kamenik and M. Tammaro
Tue, 25 Apr 23
52/72

Comments: 8 pages, 7 figures

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.11937

We present a timing and noise analysis of the Be/X-ray binary system Swift J0243.6+6124 during its 2017-2018 super-Eddington outburst using NICER/XTI observations. For the initial segments of the data that overlap with the Fermi/GBM pulse frequency history, we apply a synthetic pulse timing analysis to enrich the spin frequency history of the source. In addition, we employ phase-coherent timing analysis for NICER/XTI observations that extends beyond the Fermi/GBM frequency history. We show that the pulse profiles switch from double-peaked to single-peaked when the X-ray luminosity drops below $\sim$$7\times 10^{36}$ erg s$^{-1}$. We suggest that this transitional luminosity is associated with the transition from a pencil beam pattern to a hybrid beam pattern when the Coulomb interactions become ineffective to decelerate the accretion flow, which implies a dipolar magnetic field strength of $\sim$$5\times 10^{12}$ G. We also obtained the power density spectra (PDS) of the spin frequency derivative fluctuations. The red noise component of the PDS is found to be steeper ($\omega^{-3.36}$) than the other transient accreting sources. We find significantly high noise strength estimates above the super-Eddington luminosity levels, which may arise from the torque fluctuations due to interactions with the quadrupole fields at such levels.

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M. Serim, &. Dönmez, D. Serim, et. al.
Tue, 25 Apr 23
61/72

Comments: 18 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.10934

With the coincident detections of electromagnetic radiation together with gravitational waves (GW170817) or neutrinos (TXS 0506+056), the new era of multimessenger astrophysics has begun. Of particular interest are the searches for correlation between the high-energy astrophysical neutrinos detected by the IceCube Observatory and gamma-ray photons detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). So far, only sources detected by the LAT have been considered in correlation with IceCube neutrinos, neglecting any emission from sources too faint to be resolved individually. Here, we present the first cross-correlation analysis considering the unresolved gamma-ray background (UGRB) and IceCube events. We perform a thorough sensitivity study and, given the lack of identified correlation, we place upper limits on the fraction of the observed neutrinos that would be produced in proton-proton (p-p) or proton-gamma (p-gamma) interactions from the population of sources contributing to the UGRB emission and dominating its spatial anisotropy (aka blazars). Our analysis suggests that, under the assumption that there is no intrinsic cutoff and/or hardening of the spectrum above Fermi-LAT energies, and that all gamma-rays from the unresolved blazars dominating the UGRB fluctuation field are produced by neutral pions from p-p (p-gamma) interactions, up to 60% (30%) of such population may contribute to the total neutrino events observed by IceCube. This translates into a O(1%) maximum contribution to the astrophysical high-energy neutrino flux observed by IceCube at 100 TeV.

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M. Negro, M. Crnogorčević, E. Burns, et. al.
Mon, 24 Apr 23
1/41

Comments: This version is submitted to ApJ

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.10715

Long-lived massive magnetars are expected to be remnants of some binary neutron star (BNS) mergers. In this paper, we argue that the magnetic powered flaring activities of these merged magnetars would occur dominantly in their early millisecond-period-spin phase, which is in the timescale of days. Such flares endure significant absorption by the ejecta from the BNS collision, and their detectable energy range is from 0.1-10 MeV, in a time-lag of $\sim$ days after the merger events indicated by the gravitational wave chirps. We estimate the rate of such flares in different energy ranges, and find that there could have been ~0.1-10 cases detected by Fermi/GBM. A careful search for $\sim10$ milliseconds spin period modulation in weak short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may identify them from the archival data. Future MeV detectors can detect them at a rate from a few to tens per year. The recent report on the Quasi-Period-Oscillation found in two BASTE GRBs should not be considered as cases of such flares, for they were detection in a lower energy range and with a much shorter period spin modulation.

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S. Yi, Z. Zhang and X. Wang
Mon, 24 Apr 23
25/41

Comments: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJL

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.10847

Ejection mechanism of transient relativistic jets from black hole binaries is studied. Based on the observations of the limit-cycle behaviors of the superluminal jet source, GRS 1915+105, we infer that the transient jet ejections could happen just after the slim disk emerging from the standard disk at some distance runs over the standard disk and reaches the vicinity of the central black hole. The standard disk releases about a half of the gravitational energy in the course of the accretion, but the released radiative energy could be absorbed by the optically thick slim disk covering the standard disk in this situation. Then, since the inward motion of the slim disk is much faster than that of the standard disk, a quantity of energy released by an amount of gas in the standard disk is received by the much smaller amount of gas in the slim disk. As the result, the energy per mass received by the slim disk is expected to be largely amplified and is estimated to get highly relativistic. Since the energy is much larger than the gravitational energy, the height of the slim disk could significantly increase. Hence, the innermost part of the slim disk from which almost all the angular momentum has been transferred outward could have a much larger height than the black hole size and collide with one another around the central axis of the disk, turning to an outward flow along the axis normal to the disk plane. The flow in this direction can be approximated to be that through the de Laval nozzle and could become supersonic near the distance where the flow has the smallest cross section.

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H. Inoue
Mon, 24 Apr 23
39/41

Comments: accepted to PASJ

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.10684

In the collisionless plasmas of radiatively inefficient accretion flows, heating and acceleration of ions and electrons is not well understood. Recent studies in the gyrokinetic limit revealed the importance of incorporating both the compressive and Alfvenic cascades when calculating the partition of dissipated energy between the plasma species. In this paper, we use a covariant analytic model of the accretion flow to explore the impact of compressive and Alfvenic heating, Coulomb collisions, compressional heating, and radiative cooling on the radial temperature profiles of ions and electrons. We show that, independent of the partition of heat between the plasma species, even a small fraction of turbulent energy dissipated to the electrons makes their temperature scale with a virial profile and the ion-to-electron temperature ratio smaller than in the case of pure Coulomb heating. In contrast, the presence of compressive cascades makes this ratio larger because compressive turbulent energy is channeled primarily into the ions. We calculate the ion-to-electron temperature in the inner accretion flow for a broad range of plasma properties, mass accretion rates, and black hole spins and show that it ranges between $5 \lesssim T_i/T_e \lesssim 40$. We provide a physically motivated expression for this ratio that can be used to calculate observables from simulations of black hole accretion flows for a wide range of conditions.

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K. Satapathy, D. Psaltis and F. Ozel
Mon, 24 Apr 23
41/41

Comments: N/A

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09935

We report the discovery of millihertz quasi-periodic oscillations (mHz QPOs) from the neutron star (NS) low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1730–22 using the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER). After being inactive for almost 50 years, 4U 1730–22 went into outburst twice between June and August 2021, and between February and July 2022. We analyse all the NICER observations of this source, and detect mHz QPOs with a significance > $4\sigma$ in 35 observations. The QPO frequency of the full data set ranged between ~4.5 and ~8.1 mHz with an average fractional rms amplitude of the order of ~2%. The X-ray colour analysis strongly suggests that 4U 1730–22 was in a soft spectral state during the QPO detections. Our findings are consistent with those reported for other sources where the mHz QPOs have been interpreted as the result of a special mode of He burning on the NS surface called marginally stable nuclear burning (MSNB). We conclude that the mHz QPOs reported in this work are also associated with the MSNB, making 4U 1730–22 the eighth source that shows this phenomenology. We discuss our findings in the context of the heat flux from the NS crust.

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G. Mancuso, D. Altamirano, P. Bult, et. al.
Fri, 21 Apr 23
18/60

Comments: 9 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.10416

Superluminous supernovae are among the most energetic stellar explosions in the Universe, but their energy sources remain an open question. Here we present long-term observations of one of the closest examples of the hydrogen-poor subclass (SLSNe-I), SN~2017egm, revealing the most complicated known luminosity evolution of SLSNe-I. Three distinct post-peak bumps were recorded in its light curve collected at about $100$–350\,days after maximum brightness, challenging current popular power models such as magnetar, fallback accretion, and interaction between ejecta and a circumstellar shell. However, the complex light curve can be well modelled by successive interactions with multiple circumstellar shells with a total mass of about $6.8$–7.7\,M$\odot$. In this scenario, large energy deposition from interaction-induced reverse shocks results in ionization of neutral oxygen in the supernova ejecta and hence a much lower nebular-phase line ratio of [O\,\textsc{i}] $\lambda6300$/([Ca\,\textsc{ii}] + [O\,\textsc{ii}]) $\lambda7300$ ($\sim 0.2$) compared with that derived for other superluminous and normal stripped-envelope SNe. The pre-existing multiple shells indicate that the progenitor of SN~2017egm experienced pulsational mass ejections triggered by pair instability within 2 years before explosion, in robust agreement with theoretical predictions for a pre-pulsation helium-core mass of 48–51\,M${\odot}$.

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W. Lin, X. Wang, L. Yan, et. al.
Fri, 21 Apr 23
21/60

Comments: 34 pages, 13 figures, 6 tables

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.10188

The observed hard TeV gamma-ray spectrum of the nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB) 190829A may challenge the conventional leptonic GRB afterglow model. It has been proposed that an ultra-high-energy (UHE; $\varepsilon^{‘}{\rm p}\sim 10^{20}$ eV) proton population can be pre-accelerated by internal shocks in GRB jets. We study possible signatures of the UHE protons embedded in the TeV afterglows when they escape the afterglow fireball. We show that the leptonic model can represent the observed multiwavelength lightcurves and spectral energy distributions of GRB 190829A by considering the uncertainties of the model parameters. Attributing the TeV gamma-ray afterglows to the emission of both the electron self-Compton scattering process and the UHE proton synchrotron radiations in the afterglow fireball, we obtain tentative upper limits of $\log{10} \varepsilon_{\rm p}^{\prime}/{\rm eV}\sim 20.46$ and $\log_{10}E_{\rm p, total}/{\rm erg}\leq 50.75$, where $E_{\rm p, total}$ is the total energy of the proton population. The synchrotron radiations of the UHE protons should dominate the early TeV gamma-ray afterglows, implying that early observations are critical for revealing the UHE proton population.

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J. Huang, X. Huang, J. Cheng, et. al.
Fri, 21 Apr 23
51/60

Comments: 9 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for Publication in ApJ

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09295

The high mass X-ray binary system 4U 0114+65 was observed by Nustar in October 2019, and by XMM-Newton in August 2015. Here we performed spectral and timing analysis of the Nustar observation, and carry out timing analysis on the XMM-Newton data. We measured the spin period of the neutron star from both observations and found a spin-up rate $\dot{p} = 1.54 \pm 0.38 \times 10^{-6} s s^{-1}$. During the Nustar observation two flares occured, one occured shortly after the start of the observation and the other near the end separated by a long period of low/quiescent- state. The large and sudden flares mostly resulted from accretion of Corotating Interaction Region (CIR) material. A common spectral model to HMXBs, powerlaw with high energy cutoff and absorption at low energy, gave a good fit to both flaring and quiescent states. A flourescent iron line was not required in fitting any of the states. On the other hand, very tentative evidence of Cyclotron Resonant Scattering Feature (CRSF) at $\sim$ 17 keV was found during fitting using cyclabs model, however fitting improvement was not significant enough to confirm its detection, plus a very narrow width (< 1 keV) was obtained for the line and its first harmonic. Visual inspection of the spectra showed a deficiency of emission near the expected first and second harmonic. Another important feature visually noticed in the spectra is the presence of hard tail above 50 keV. This could be explained by the shocked material bounding the CIR.

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M. Abdallah, R. Samir, D. Leahy, et. al.
Thu, 20 Apr 23
21/57

Comments: N/A

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09122

Gamma-ray bursts categorically produce broadband afterglow emission, but in some cases, emission in the optical band is dimmer than expected based on the contemporaneously observed X-ray flux. This phenomenon, aptly dubbed “optical darkness”, has been studied extensively in long GRBs (associated with the explosive deaths of massive stars), with possible explanations ranging from host environment extinction to high redshift to possibly unique emission mechanisms. However, investigations into optical darkness in short GRBs (associated with the mergers of compact object binaries) have thus far been limited. This work implements a procedure for determining the darkness of GRBs based on spectral indices calculated using temporally-matched Swift-XRT data and optical follow-up observations; presents a complete and up-to-date catalog of known short GRBs that exhibit optical darkness; and outlines some of the possible explanations for optically dark short GRBs. In the process of this analysis, we developed versatile and scalable data processing code that facilitates reproducibility and reuse of our pipeline. These analysis tools and resulting complete sample of dark short GRBs enable a systematic statistical study of the phenomenon and its origins, and reveal that optical darkness is indeed quite rare in short GRBs, and highly dependent on observing response time and observational effects.

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C. Gobat, A. Horst and D. Fitzpatrick
Wed, 19 Apr 23
19/58

Comments: 9 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08816

IGR J17407-2808 is an enigmatic and poorly studied X-ray binary that was recently observed quasi-simultaneously with NuSTAR and XMM-Newton. In this paper we report the results of this observational campaign. During the first 60 ks of observation, the source was caught in a relatively low emission state, characterised by a modest variability and an average flux of ~8.3E-13 erg/cm^2/s (4-60 keV). Afterwards, IGR J17407-2808 entered a significantly more active emission state that persisted for the remaining ~40 ks of the NuSTAR observation. During this state, IGR J17407-2808 displayed several fast X-ray flares, featuring durations of ~1-100 s and profiles with either single or multiple peaks. The source flux in the flaring state reached values as high as 2E-9 erg/cm^2/s (4-60 keV), leading to a measured dynamic range during the NuSTAR and XMM-Newton campaign of >~ 10^3. We also analysed available archival photometric near-infrared data of IGR J17407-2808 to improve the constraints available so far on the the nature of the donor star hosted in this system. Our analysis shows that the donor star can be either a rare K or M-type sub-subgiant or an K type main sequence star, or sub-giant star. Our findings support the classification of IGR J17407-2808 as a low-mass X-ray binary. We discuss the source X-ray behaviour as recorded by NuSTAR and XMM-Newton in view of this revised classification.

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L. Ducci, C. Malacaria, P. Romano, et. al.
Wed, 19 Apr 23
21/58

Comments: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08514

The transient X-ray source MAXI J1810-222 was discovered in 2018 and has been active ever since. A long combined radio and X-ray monitoring campaign was performed with ATCA and Swift respectively. It has been proposed that MAXI J1810-222 is a relatively distant black hole X-ray binary, albeit showing a very peculiar outburst behaviour. Here, we report on the spectral study of this source making use of a large sample of NICER observations performed between 2019 February and 2020 September. We detected a strong spectral absorption feature at $\sim$1 keV, which we have characterised with a physical photoionisation model. Via a deep scan of the parameters space, we obtained evidence for a spectral-state dependent outflow, with mildly relativistic speeds. In particular, the soft and intermediate states point to a hot plasma outflowing at 0.05-0.15 $c$. This speeds rule-out thermal winds and, hence, they suggest that such outflows could be radiation pressure or (most likely) magnetically-driven winds. Our results are crucial to test current theoretical models of wind formation in X-ray binaries.

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M. Santo, C. Pinto, A. Marino, et. al.
Wed, 19 Apr 23
29/58

Comments: 6 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09051

Searching for afterglows not associated with any gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is a longstanding goal of transient surveys. These surveys provide the very chance of discovering the so-called orphan afterglows. Recently, a promising orphan afterglow candidate, AT2021any, was found by the Zwicky Transient Facility. Here we perform multi-wavelength fitting of AT2021any with three different outflow models, namely the top-hat jet model, the isotropic fireball model, and the structured Gaussian jet model. Although the three models can all fit the observed light curve well, it is found that the structured Gaussian jet model presents the best result, and thus is preferred by observations. In the framework of the Gaussian jet model, the best-fit Lorentz factor is about 68, which indicates that AT2021any should be a failed GRB. The half-opening angle of the jet and the viewing angle are found to be 0.104 and 0.02, respectively, which means that the jet is essentially observed on-axis. The trigger time of the GRB is inferred to be about 1000 s before the first detection of the orphan afterglow. An upper limit of 21.4% is derived for the radiative efficiency, which is typical in GRBs.

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F. Xu, Y. Huang and J. Geng
Wed, 19 Apr 23
37/58

Comments: 14 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables. Submitted to A&A, comments welcome

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08666

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been traditionally classified based on their duration. The increasing number of extended emission (EE) GRBs, lasting typically more than 2 seconds but with properties similar to those of a short GRBs, challenges the traditional classification criteria. In this work, we use the t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE), a machine learning technique, to classify GRBs. We present the results for GRBs observed until July 2022 by the {\itshape Swift}/BAT instrument in all its energy bands. We show the effects of varying the learning rate and perplexity parameters as well as the benefit of pre-processing the data by a non-parametric noise reduction technique. % named {\sc FABADA}. Consistently with previous works, we show that the t-SNE method separates GRBs in two subgroups. We also show that EE GRBs reported by various authors under different criteria tend to cluster in a few regions of our t-SNE maps, and identify seven new EE GRB candidates by using the gamma-ray data provided by the automatic pipeline of {\itshape Swift}/BAT and the proximity with previously identified EE GRBs.

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K. Garcia-Cifuentes, R. Becerra, F. Colle, et. al.
Wed, 19 Apr 23
44/58

Comments: Submitted to ApJ after minor comments

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08828

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) occur when a star passes close to a massive black hole, so that the tidal forces of the black hole exceed the binding energy of a star and cause it to be ripped apart. Part of the matter will fall onto the black hole, causing a strong increase in the luminosity. Such events are often seen in the optical or the X-ray (or both) or even at other wavelengths such as in the radio, where the diversity of observed emission is still poorly understood. The XMM-Newton catalogue of approximately a million X-ray detections covering 1283$^2$ degrees of sky contains a number of these events. Here I will show the diverse nature of a number of TDEs discovered in the catalogue and discuss their relationship with quasi periodic eruptions.

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N. Webb, D. Barret, O. Godet, et. al.
Wed, 19 Apr 23
56/58

Comments: 7 pages, 1 figure, accepted version for the proceedings of the ‘Black Hole Accretion Under the X-ray Microscope’ Meeting held at ESAC in June 2022. Publisher : Astronomische Nachrichten

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08418

Observations collected with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and analysis of broadband X-ray spectra have recently suggested the presence of a central compact object (CCO) in SN 1987A. However, no direct evidence of the CCO has been found yet. Here we analyze Chandra X-ray observations of SN 1987A collected in 2007 and 2018, and synthesize the 2027 Chandra and 2037 Lynx spectra of the faint inner region of SN 1987A. We estimate the temporal evolution of the upper limits of the intrinsic luminosity of the putative CCO in three epochs (2018, 2027 and 2037). We find that these upper limits are higher for higher neutron star (NS) kick velocities due to the increased absorption from the surrounding cold ejecta. We compare NS cooling models with both the intrinsic luminosity limits obtained from the X-ray spectra, and the ALMA constraints with the assumption that the observed blob of SN 1987A is primarily heated by thermal emission. We find that the synthetic Lynx spectra are crucial to constrain physical properties of the CCO, which will be confirmed by future observations in the 2040s. We draw our conclusions based on two scenarios, namely the non-detection and detection of NS by Lynx. If the NS is not detected, its kick velocity should be ~700 km/s. Furthermore, the non-detection of the NS would suggest rapid cooling processes around the age of 40 years, implying strong crust superfluidity. Conversely, in the case of NS detection, the mass of the NS envelope must be high.

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A. Dohi, E. Greco, S. Nagataki, et. al.
Tue, 18 Apr 23
11/80

Comments: 37 pages, 17 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07977

We use the Athena++ Monte Carlo (MC) radiation transfer module to post-process simulation snapshots from non-relativistic Athena++ radiation magnetohydrodynamic (RMHD) simulations. These simulations were run using a gray (frequency integrated) approach but were also restarted and ran with a multi-group approach that accounts for Compton scattering with a Kompaneets operator. These simulations produced moderately super-Eddington accretion rates onto a 6.62 $M_\odot$ black hole. Since we only achieve inflow equilibrium out to 20-25 gravitational radii, we focus on the hard X-ray emission. We provide a comparison between the MC and RMHD simulations showing that the treatment of Compton scattering in the gray RMHD simulations underestimates the gas temperature in the regions above and below the accretion disk. In contrast, the restarted multi-group snapshots provides a treatment for the radiation field that is more consistent with the MC calculations, and result in post-processed spectra with harder X-ray emission compared to their gray snapshot counterparts. We characterize these MC post-processed spectra using commonly employed phenomenological models used for spectral fitting. We also attempt to fit our MC spectra directly to observations of the ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) NGC 1313 X-1, finding best fit values that are competitive to phenomenological model fits, indicating that first principle models of super-Eddington accretion may adequately explain the observed hard X-ray spectra in some ULX sources.

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B. Mills, S. Davis, Y. Jiang, et. al.
Tue, 18 Apr 23
16/80

Comments: Submitted to ApJ; 20 pages, 15 figures,

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08132

We study the acceleration of charged particles by ultra-relativistic shocks using test-particle Monte-Carlo simulations. Two field configurations are considered: (i) shocks with uniform upstream magnetic field in the plane of the shock, and (ii) shocks in which the upstream magnetic field has a cylindrical geometry. Particles are assumed to diffuse in angle due to frequent non-resonant scattering on small-scale fields. The steady-state distribution of particles’ Lorentz factors is shown to approximately satisfy $dN/d\gamma \propto \gamma^{-2.2}$ provided the particle motion is scattering dominated on at least one side of the shock. For scattering dominated transport, the acceleration rate scales as $t_{\rm acc}\propto t^{1/2}$, though recovers Bohm scaling $t_{\rm acc}\propto t$ if particles become magnetised on one side of the shock. For uniform field configurations, a limiting energy is reached when particles are magnetised on both sides of the shock. For the cylindrical field configuration, this limit does not apply, and particles of one sign of charge will experience a curvature drift that redirects particles upstream. For the non-resonant scattering model considered, these particles preferentially escape only when they reach the confinement limit determined by the finite system size, and the distribution approaches the escapeless limit $dN/d\gamma \propto \gamma^{-1}$. The cylindrical field configuration resembles that expected for jets launched by the Blandford $\&$ Znajek mechanism, the luminous jets of AGN and GRBs thus provide favourable sites for the production of ultra-high energy cosmic rays.

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Z. Huang, B. Reville, J. Kirk, et. al.
Tue, 18 Apr 23
20/80

Comments: N/A

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07321

Over the last decade, observations have shown that the mean mass of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) increases progressively toward the highest energies. However, the precise composition is still unknown, and several theoretical studies hint at the existence of a subdominant proton component up to the highest energies. Motivated by the exciting prospect of performing charged-particle astronomy with ultra-high-energy (UHE) protons we quantify the level of UHE-proton flux that is compatible with present multimessenger observations and the associated fluxes of neutral messengers produced in the interactions of the protons. We study this scenario with numerical simulations of two independent populations of extragalactic sources and perform a fit to the combined UHECR energy spectrum and composition observables, constrained by diffuse gamma-ray and neutrino observations. We find that up to of order $10\%$ of the cosmic rays at the highest energies can be UHE protons, although the result depends critically on the selected hadronic interaction model for the air showers. Depending on the maximum proton energy ($E_\text{max}^\text{p}$) and the redshift evolution of sources, the associated flux of cosmogenic neutrinos and UHE gamma rays can significantly exceed the multimessenger signal of the mixed-mass cosmic rays. Moreover, if $E_\text{max}^\text{p}$ is above the GZK limit, we predict a large flux of UHE neutrinos above EeV energies that is absent in alternate scenarios for the origin of UHECRs. We present the implications and opportunities afforded by these UHE proton, neutrino and photon fluxes for future multimessenger observations.

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D. Ehlert, A. Vliet, F. Oikonomou, et. al.
Tue, 18 Apr 23
73/80

Comments: 11 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. Comments welcome

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07553

Cyg X-1 is probably the most studied and best understood black-hole X-ray binary. Recently, its accretion geometry has been probed with the X-ray polarization. The position angle of the X-ray emitting flow was found to be aligned with the position angle of the radio jet in the plane of the sky. At the same time, the observed high polarization degree could be obtained only for a high inclination of the X-ray emitting flow, indicating a misalignment between the binary axis and the black hole spin. The jet, in turn, is believed to be directed by the spin axis, hence similar misalignment is expected between the jet and binary axes. We test this hypothesis using very long (up to about 26 years) multi-band radio observations. We find the misalignment of $20^\circ$-$30^\circ$; however, on the contrary to the earlier expectations, the misalignment lies in the plane of the sky and not along the line of sight. Furthermore, the presence of the misalignment questions our understanding of the evolution of this binary system.

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A. Zdziarski, A. Veledina, M. Szanecki, et. al.
Tue, 18 Apr 23
74/80

Comments: 16 pages, 5 figures

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08044

The quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) found in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are a very interesting observational phenomenon implying an unknown physical mechanism around supermassive black holes. Several AGNs have been found to have QPO phenomena in the X-ray energy band. Long-duration X-ray observations were collected and reduced for six AGNs with a suspected QPO. The Gaussian process (GP) model celerite was used to fit the light curves and to search for the quasi-periodicity behavior. The power spectral density and parameter posterior distributions of each light curve were calculated with the optimal model. Of the six AGNs, only RE J1034+396 was found to have a QPO of about 3600 s. The other five sources do not show QPO modulation behavior. We propose that a hot spot on the accretion disk is a possible physical mechanism resulting in this quasi-periodic behavior of AGNs.

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H. Zhang, S. Yang and B. Dai
Tue, 18 Apr 23
80/80

Comments: 20 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06804

In this study we revisit public data on the supersoft X-ray source CAL 83 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A significant part of our analysis is focused on XMM-Newton X-ray observations, in which updated data reduction procedures and quality assessment were applied. We report on the capability of publicly available hot atmosphere models in describing the source’s soft X-ray spectrum. By gathering historical flux measurements in multiple wavelengths and comparing them with the fluxes derived from the X-ray analysis, we find that a $\sim$ 360 kK phenomenological blackbody model describes the spectral energy distribution of CAL 83 fairly well. We also retrieve data from the XMM-Newton UV/optical camera, which is co-alligned with the X-ray instruments and provides strictly simultaneous measurements. These observations demonstrate that the X-ray emission is definitely anti-correlated with emission at longer wavelengths in a time-scale of days to weeks. A closer look at simultaneous X-ray and UV count rates in single light curves reveals that the anti-correlated behaviour is actually present in time scales as short as minutes, suggesting that the origin of variable emission in the system is not unique.

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P. Stecchini, M. Diaz, F. D’Amico, et. al.
Mon, 17 Apr 23
8/51

Comments: 9 pages, 8 figures. To be published in MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07197

Type I X-ray bursts are rapidly brightening phenomena triggered by thermonuclear burning on accreting layer of a neutron star (NS). The light curves represent the physical properties of NSs and the nuclear reactions on the proton-rich nuclei. The numerical treatments of the accreting NS and physics of the NS interior are not established, which shows uncertainty in modelling for observed X-ray light curves. In this study, we investigate theoretical X-ray-burst models, compared with burst light curves with GS~1826-24 observations. We focus on the impacts of the NS mass, the NS radius, and base-heating on the NS surface using the MESA code. We find a monotonic correlation between the NS mass and the parameters of the light curve. The higher the mass, the longer the recurrence time and the greater the peak luminosity. While the larger the radius, the longer the recurrence time, the peak luminosity remains nearly constant. In the case of increasing base heating, both the recurrence time and peak luminosity decrease. We also examine the above results using with a different numerical code, HERES, based on general relativity and consider the central NS. We find that the burst rate, burst energy and burst strength are almost same in two X-ray burst codes by adjusting the base-heat parameter in MESA (the relative errors $\lesssim5\%$), while the duration time and the rise time are significantly different between (the relative error is possibly $\sim50\%$). The peak luminosity and the e-folding time are ragged between two codes for different accretion rates.

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G. Zhen, G. Lv, H. Liu, et. al.
Mon, 17 Apr 23
28/51

Comments: 14 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07287

Despite their discovery about half a century ago, the Gamma-ray burst (GRB) prompt emission mechanism is still not well understood. Theoretical modeling of the prompt emission has advanced considerably due to new computational tools and techniques. One such tool is the PLUTO hydrodynamics code, which is used to numerically simulate GRB outflows. PLUTO uses Adaptive Mesh Refinement to focus computational efforts on the portion of the grid that contains the simulated jet. Another tool is the Monte Carlo Radiation Transfer (MCRaT) code, which predicts electromagnetic signatures of GRBs by conducting photon scatterings within a jet using PLUTO. The effects of the underlying resolution of a PLUTO simulation with respect to MCRaT post-processing radiative transfer results have not yet been quantified. We analyze an analytic spherical outflow and a hydrodynamically simulated GRB jet with MCRaT at varying spatial and temporal resolutions and quantify how decreasing both resolutions affect the resulting mock observations. We find that changing the spatial resolution changes the hydrodynamic properties of the jet, which directly affect the MCRaT mock observable peak energies. We also find that decreasing the temporal resolution artificially decreases the high energy slope of the mock observed spectrum, which increases both the spectral peak energy and the luminosity. We show that the effects are additive when both spatial and temporal resolutions are modified. Our results allow us to understand how decreased hydrodynamic temporal and spatial resolutions affect the results of post-processing radiative transfer calculations, allowing for the optimization of hydrodynamic simulations for radiative transfer codes.

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J. Arita-Escalante, T. Parsotan and S. Cenko
Mon, 17 Apr 23
32/51

Comments: 12 pages, 10 figures, submitted to ApJ, for calculations, see: this https URL

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06699

In this work, we present a simple interpolation methodology for spectroscopic time series, based on conventional interpolation techniques (random forests) implemented in widely-available libraries. We demonstrate that our existing library of simulations is sufficient for training, producing interpolated spectra that respond sensitively to varied ejecta parameter, post-merger time, and viewing angle inputs. We compare our interpolated spectra to the AT2017gfo spectral data, and find parameters similar to our previous inferences using broadband light curves. However, the spectral observations have significant systematic short-wavelength residuals relative to our models, which we cannot explain within our existing framework. Similar to previous studies, we argue that an additional blue component is required. We consider a radioactive heating source as a third component characterized by light, slow-moving, lanthanide-free ejecta with $M_{\rm th} = 0.003~M_\odot$, $v_{\rm th} = 0.05$c, and $\kappa_{\rm th} = 1$ cm$^2$/g. When included as part of our radiative transfer simulations, our choice of third component reprocesses blue photons into lower energies, having the opposite effect and further accentuating the blue-underluminosity disparity in our simulations. As such, we are unable to overcome short-wavelength deficits at later times using an additional radioactive heating component, indicating the need for a more sophisticated modeling treatment.

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M. Ristic, R. O’Shaughnessy, V. Villar, et. al.
Fri, 14 Apr 23
4/64

Comments: 11 pages, 7 figures, presenting at April APS session F13.00006

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06077

We investigated the snapshots of five NICER observations of the black hole transient GX 339-4 when the source transited from the hard state into the soft state during its outburst in 2021. In this paper, we focused our study on the evolution of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) and noise components using power-density spectra. In addition, we derived hardness ratios comparing count rates above and below 2 keV. The evolution from the hard to the soft state was a somewhat erratic process showing several transitions between states that are dominated by top-flat noise and can show type-C QPOs; those that are dominated by red noise and can show type-B QPOs. From the parameters that we studied, we only found a strong correlation between the hardness ratio and the type of QPO observed. This implies that the appearance of type-B QPOs is related to a change in the accretion geometry of the system that also reflects in altered spectral properties. We also observed that the type-B QPO forms from or disintegrates into a broad peaked feature when the source comes out of or goes to the hard-intermediate state, respectively. This implies some strong decoherence in the process that creates this feature.

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H. Stiele and A. Kong
Fri, 14 Apr 23
8/64

Comments: 6 pages, 5 figures, supplementary online material as appendices (13 pages), accepted for publication in MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06271

We present a short overview of the TeV-Halos objects as a discovery and a relevant contribution of the High Altitude Water \v{C}erenkov (HAWC) observatory to TeV astrophysics. We discuss history, discovery, knowledge, and the next step through a new and more detailed analysis than the original study in 2017. TeV-Halos will contribute to resolving the problem of the local positron excess observed on the Earth. To clarify the latter, understanding the diffusion process is mandatory.

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R. Torres-Escobedo, H. Zhou, E. Fuente, et. al.
Fri, 14 Apr 23
20/64

Comments: Work presented in the 21st International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions(ISVHECRI 2022) as part of the Ph. D. Thesis of Ramiro Torres-Escobedo (SJTU, Shanghai, China). Accepted for publication in SciPost Physics Proceedings (ISSN 2666-4003). 11 pages, 3 Figures. Short overview of HAWC and TeV Halos objects until 2022

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06230

We have performed a series of two-dimensional two-temperature general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of magnetized accretion flows initiated from tori with different sizes and poloidal magnetic loop polarities. In these two temperature simulations, we trace the process of heating electrons through turbulence and reconnection, most of the time these electrons are trapped in plasmoids. We found that the accretion process strongly depends on the size of the magnetic loops. The accretion flows never reach the magnetically arrested (MAD) regime in small loop cases. Interaction between magnetic field with different polarities dissipates and decreases the efficiency of magneto-rotational instability. The dependency on the wavelength of the loops places a lower limit on the loop size. In the large loop cases, after reaching a quasi-steady phase, a transition from Standard And Normal Evolution (SANE) flow to MAD flow is observed. The transition of the accretion state and the transition time depends on the initial loop wavelength. The formation of plasmoids strongly depends on the size of the magnetic loops. The frequent magnetic reconnection between the magnetic loops is responsible for the formation of most of the plasmoids. For some plasmoids, Kelvin-Helmholtz and tearing instabilities are coexisting, showing another channel of plasmoid formation. The simulations present that electrons in the plasmoids are well-heated up by turbulent and magnetic reconnection. Different properties of plasmoid formation in different magnetic field configurations provide new insights for the understanding of flaring activity and electron thermodynamics in Sgr A*.

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H. Jiang, Y. Mizuno, C. Fromm, et. al.
Fri, 14 Apr 23
43/64

Comments: 18 pages, 25 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06581

GRB 211211A is a rare burst with a genuinely long duration, yet its prominent kilonova association provides compelling evidence that this peculiar burst was the result of a compact binary merger. However, the exact nature of the merging objects, whether they were neutron star pairs, neutron star-black hole systems, or neutron star-white dwarf systems, remains unsettled. This Letter delves into the rarity of this event and the possibility of using current and next-generation gravitational wave detectors to distinguish between the various types of binary systems. Our research reveals an event rate density of $\gtrsim 5.67^{+13.04}_{-4.69} \times 10^{-3}\ \rm Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}$ for GRB 211211A-like GRBs, which is significantly smaller than that of typical long and short GRB populations. We further calculated that if the origin of GRB 211211A is a result of a neutron star-black hole merger, it would be detectable with a significant signal-to-noise ratio, given the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA designed sensitivity. On the other hand, a neutron star-white dwarf binary would also produce a considerable signal-to-noise ratio during the inspiral phase at decihertz and is detectable by next-generation space-borne detectors DECIGO and BBO. However, to detect this type of system with millihertz space-borne detectors like LISA, Taiji, and TianQin, the event must be very close, approximately 3 Mpc in distance or smaller.

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Y. Yin, B. Zhang, H. Sun, et. al.
Fri, 14 Apr 23
57/64

Comments: 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table